Chapter 7

It wasn’t quite yet dawn when Lucie de Mont rode through the town and up the mountain road to Castle Baad, but daylight was approaching soon enough that she urged former steward’s pack horse onward as quickly as she dared. The beast had been none too hale even fully rested in the stables and its long period of somewhat short rations there hadn’t improved its endurance under a heavy load this night. Twice on the journey back, she had needed to stop and move yet more of the plundered treasury over to Mather’s much stronger back. Even nearly completely unburdened now, the exhausted mount could barely put one hoof in front of the other.

“Not much further now,” she muttered, coaxing the weary animal as they climbed up the last mile of long mountain road and at last reached the drawbridge. As promised, the drawbridge had been left down for the night and the portcullis had been left up, leaving just the stout wooden gate to be unlocked for the exhausted travelers to reach their home.

The stables were unfortunately not the first stop for the tired mounts, as Lucie rode around the courtyard to the rear, north most tower of the castle. This was the old Warlock’s Tower where Ben had spent the majority of his childhood, taking lessons or just hiding away from his family. No one ever stepped near it, then or apparently even now, if it could be avoided. In a county cursed for multiple generations, this evil tower was by far the most ill-regarded by another with more than an ounce of common-sense. Thus, it was by far the safest place for the county treasury to be securely stored, she calculated. The door leading down into the dungeon was locked, but the spare key that Ben had used as a boy was still in its usual hiding place nearby, and the rusted door lock turned with a little bit of effort. It took numerous trips to haul the chests and sturdy leather sacks into the tower and down the steps to the front of the locked door leading into the warlock’s dungeon laboratory, study and sanctum sanctorum, where Ben had daily taken his lessons. When the very last bag and bit of purloined loot and the pack with Ben’s personal items had been moved downstairs to the dungeon door, it was then time to see the mounts attended to and given their deserved rest.

The stables were locked up for the night but since the stable master lived in quarters upstairs, immediately close at hand, Lucie barely had to knock on his door before the man answered and he took his instructions without asking any questions. A smart young man!

“I’ve found the former steward’s horse wandering loose in the wilds of Riblund,” she stated quickly, “utterly knackered and unlikely to be fit for anything anytime soon again, if ever. Scrape out the corners of the grain bin and give her, and Count Baad’s horse, whatever can be provided. Then, perhaps after a rest for a day or two, if she improves even slightly, we can see what she can be sold or traded for. Count Baad will undoubted have further instructions for you on this and other matters shortly.”

He would, but first the recovered county treasury needed to be locked securely away ... and perhaps then a short nap was very definitely in order!

The key to the dungeon door in the basement turned more easily, and with much less resistance than the upstairs doors had offered. In a few moments all of the loot was safely now inside and the door was shut, locked and even the bolt thrown across the interior doorway, just for extra security. Paranoia could be a useful family trait sometimes, if not taken to extreme excesses.

It was very dark down there, but a simple light spell produced just enough minimal brightness to find the nearest candlestick and light that. The spell should have produced a great deal more light than it did, but perhaps fatigue was the cause of that poor magical effect. Then, once a few of the wall and column torch sconces had been lit up, the gloomy details of the dungeon came more clearly into view ... along with its occupant.

“Well, it’s about time you showed up to pay me a visit!” The ghostly apparition of the warlock, his former school master, stated with visible annoyance. “You’ve been home for nearly a full day and haven’t come to pay me a visit until now ... you ungrateful pupil! And since when did you become a panty-wearing pansy like your middle brother Jared? It was your father catching him wearing women’s clothes one time too many that led to his being thrown off of this very tower ... well that, and what he was doing at the time while wearing them. Ahhh, I miss that rather confused young thing ... he, or rather she, used to sneak down here at night wearing women’s nightclothes, wanting me to give it to him good and hard and treat him like the little bitch that he was. Ahhh ... those were happy days ... so I except now you’ll be wanting the same service from me?”

Ben ought to have been utterly astonished to see the ghost of his former tutor, but with a quick sigh he mentally filed this specter of ill-fortune as just another of the countless things currently gone totally terribly wrong with Baad County.

“Don’t try and be funny, Ragnar,” Ben snapped as he took off Lucie’s silver grey colored wig and veil and began undressing from his ‘working’ costume, “you were never any good at pretending to be human, even when you were ‘alive’ ... and now you’re quite obviously not. I see that the various rites they did over your corpse before burning it were less than successful.”

“Well, they were partially successful. No, my glorious dreams of become a lich, a powerful corpse ruling over an army of undead followers appears now to be forever lost. I’ve returned, as intended, but I’m just a fairly weak shade, not even a full proper ghost or better even still a great revenant, still possessing some of my former magical powers. I had done several of the necessary preparatory necromancy rituals, just enough for my spirit to return here, but nothing that could preserve my physical form after death. Alas, I couldn’t give you that hard jolly rogering anyway, now ... in this form. Even all of my resident zombie girls have had their remaining flesh all rot away, with naught left to them now but bone, so I can’t even manage to enjoy any sport with them either. It’s all terribly distressing! Nor can I pick up and read any of my books now, or grasp a thin blade suitable for flaying screaming young maidens anymore, not that there are any on offer to me these long dark days.”

“For that, I’m sure that the remaining young maidens of the county are most grateful,” Ben smiled, pulling off his woman’s style riding boots and unfastening his skirt, leaving him now dressed only in his underwear as he opened up the saddlebag containing his other (male) clothing he’d been wearing earlier. “If you’ve noticed the state of affairs at the castle, there’s naught for comely kitchen maids, serving slatterns or harlot housemaids anywhere within these castle walls to be found now. Something that I must certainly correct, once I get the ruins of this county back on its feet again.”

“And it’s past time for that too! The worst part was being all alone down here for over six years, my spirit trapped within these dungeon walls ever restless, never resting, while waiting for your return. That is why I always adored the arts of the necromancer, because the dead know every secret hidden to the living. I knew that you would return ... but I admit that I am surprised to find that you would return wearing women’s knickers!”

“They’re silk, very soft and they’re really, really comfortable! The military underwear I used to wear is really good at absorbing sweat ... and then chafing my balls to blisters during a long day of cavalry exercises until they’re red and swollen. When wearing my costume, they’re the most comfortable garment that I’d tried for wearing while riding in a saddle for a very long day, especially during high summer when down south. I’m still not sure most people survive the hot summers down there! Out of costume ... well, I admitted to often wearing them, as I think that they’re the next best thing to being naked. I spent six years stripped bare in a prison cell and frankly I still can’t really get used to the idea or habit of wearing any clothes again ... either male or female!”

“I admit that I liked the <cough> costume <cough> of yours. It’s very you and quite suits you. It’s much more hardcore than anything your limp-wristed brother Jared would have worn, but his tastes really leaned toward the frilly girly styles, and nothing practical or martial like this. Honestly though, as an old tutor to a former pupil, you really don’t have the tits to really make that garment work to its fullest advantage. Ah, tits ... fullest ... haha, and you keep saying that I’ve got no sense of humor!”

“I’m impressed! Well, maybe six years spent all alone talking to yourself alone in the dark has given you a sense of humor after all ... just slightly perhaps. Those same six years didn’t do much to improve mine; when I talk to myself I tend to start an argument.”

“Now as for the tits, well I certainly know of a potion that can provide you with some. It’s a permanent effect, mind you, but it will give you a nice rack that you can show off to your friends and enemies and give your lovers something to play with on long cold winter nights here. I brewed this potion once for a rather flat-chested doxie of mine once and it gave her magnificent knockers that every man in the castle then wanted to feel up. When I flayed her and made her a zombie some years later, I saved her entire chest flesh, tits and all, and put them in a small barrel of preservative. It’s the small wooden keg in the back corner marked ‘Bristol’s’. If I recall, Prince Jared selected hers as the ones he wanted to wear, permanently in fact, but he must have taken his final flight off of the tower before they’d completely cured, so I could bind them to his flesh. Now that’s another possibility ... just strapping on her knockers to your skin, inside your costume. A simple blend & fix spell would make it so they’d be a perfect visual match with your flesh ... and yes, they could be removed afterwards, if you insist ... if the spell was reversed.”

Well, that was a very creepy thought ... but admittedly very practical. The lack of attractive (and distracting) cleavage on display did limit the effectiveness of his female disguise. Still, using a dead woman’s bust as a costume prop was quite ‘Baad’ and probably rather immorally evil ... but it didn’t technically violate any part of Ben’s numerous oaths. The poor girl was already dead and at least this way something of her would come to practical use. He’d consider this.

“Actually,” Ben suggested, “I was rather hoping for a much more simple approach ... like a good disguise spell or a limited term gender transformation spell. Seems like I recall seeing a spell or two like that in your library.”

“Oh, well if you want to do it that way, certainly ... first try Bardwell’s Enchantments. It’s on the third shelf towards the right, I think it has a green spine. It has an entire chapter on body alteration and transformation spells, towards the end. It’s extremely advanced magic though ... certainly not up your elementary education training, but I can help you as I can. It is long past time that we resumed your studies.”

It was very advanced magic and the spell Ben wanted covered fourteen complete pages of tiny hens-scratching text and required the brewing of an extremely complicated potion to complete the transformation. The warlock had most of the needed ingredients, but none of them were fresh. No ... Bardwell wasn’t the answer, at least for today.

“Alright, next try Shipton’s Spells,” the warlock muttered in thought, “on the same shelf but on the left side. Thin book with a blue spine, I think. You have it? Good ... the Shifton Shift is a very simple spell as I recall, with very few materials required that I’m sure I have on the shelves. Let me look at the page ... yes, just as I remembered. Easy! Even an apprentice can do this spell, but the drawback is that it only lasts a few minutes. Still it’s a start ... and perhaps I can think of ways to improve it later.”

The material components for casting the spell were all on-hand, but again not fresh. The warlock gave his pupil a quick run-through of the casting and the proper pronunciation of several of the arcane words, and soon Ben was ready to test the spell, standing naked now in front of a large mirror. It didn’t quite work as intended but fortunately, as his mentor had stated, the spell had a very short duration of only a few minutes.

“I look like one of the great apes of the forests!” Ben laughed, “I’ve never seen so much chest hair on any man’s body ever, like this. I must be the most ‘manly’ man that every walked out of an armsman’s exercise room! As for the penis, it nearly reaches my knees! There’s no underwear or codpiece made that could enclose that monster!” Soon though the spell effect wore off and Ben was entirely back to his usual normal self.

“No ... and had I known the Shipton Spell would do this, I’d have cast it on myself, evenings while entertaining your brother Jared’s backside! Now, since you seem to be putting on those silky ladies undies once more, kindly explain to me, if you would, exactly why you’re exploring your feminine side so enthusiastically? I do believe that the entirety of Prince Jared’s feminine wardrobe is still extant in his chambers, if you’d fancy having some of his nicer dresses or skimpy nighttime sleepwear to model for my amusement some late evening.”

“Perhaps later...” Ben laughed, and as he dressed he told the shade of his mentor about the various oaths he had been made to take ‘to keep the High-King’s peace’, before conditionally receiving his freedom.

“In short, Count Benjamin is pretty much buggered, with dozens of unfriendly eyes all endlessly watching me while I was at court, itching for me to set a toe out of line. Lord Egner is certain to soon have spies watching us here, recording everything that I do for the smallest possible violation of any of my oaths. He’s sure that I’m just like my father ... certain to be up to something! If I cannot be proven to be violating the peace – then he is certain to find means to violate our peace himself ... and then blame me. This winter, we’re going to face certain border raiding and an outbreak of banditry worse than we’ve seen in many years. If I openly react to his provocations, I will be breaking the peace. If I do nothing, and let his bandits and raiders plunder us at will, then I will be seen as incompetent as a count and he will cry to the court for me to be removed, where he will have many friends in agreement with him.”

“So, since Count Benjamin cannot either openly fight or do nothing and yet keep his oaths,” he concluded, “I needed someone, a separate third-party or even a secret alter-ego ... like Lucie de Mont that can do everything that Count Ben cannot! I recently met a famous bandit who lived such a dual-life, a respected man and yet also secretly the murderous female highwayman called Marie de Mont. None suspected his clandestine alter-ego, until his death. That was when this idea came to me and it wouldn’t leave my head ... so I wondered then, which if Marie had had a sister? So in a surprisingly short amount of time, my alter-ego ‘Lucie de Mont’ was born. Already she has already become my nastier counterpart, my very evil twin, able and very willing to do all the things I can’t do as Ben. Does this mean that I’m likely to spend half of the next years of my life pretending to live as a woman? Or that the time, expense and emotional energy I’ve invested preparing this alter-ego, learning but not yet fully mastering the many arts needed to become just like Marie de Mont were all worth it ... and the resultant personal indignities incurred during her education, like learning to dance half naked on a stage, so that she might succeed? Perhaps ... ask me again sometime later, after Lord Egner is gone and at least some of our stolen lands have been returned to us! Perhaps there will still be something substantial of Lord Ben left to enjoy that victory, otherwise, if I fail and a price is declared on my head ... it will have to be as Lady Lucie that I will live my remaining hours and days until they hunt me down. Either way, if it will rid County Baad of Lord Egner’s lusting greed, and maybe even restore portions of my birthright, my father’s kingdom, there is no sacrifice I can make that would be too great.”

“Fair enough said,” the shade of the warlock replied with a visible nod of agreement, “your secrets shall remain your own and I will speak no more of any of them. But why, might I politely ask, did you choose the name Lucie?”